Project Management 2.0? Why, What’s Wrong with 1.0?

It’s fashionable to declare one’s fed up with the whole Everything 2.0 phenomenon
It’s also fashionable to then go on and declare yet-another 2.0 term

</end sarcasm>

The little disclaimer out of the way, I am going to talk about Project Management 2.0 . Let me quickly state that I don’t really know what the consensus definition of PM 2.0 is, I just had a lot of personal experience in what’s wrong with 1.0.

In the 90’s I worked on a number of fairly large scale SAP Projects in a variety of roles, including Project Manager, and supervisor of several other projects. The standard tool was Microsoft Project. It was used for:

Planning a Project (initial Scoping)
Selling it
Periodic reporting to Steering Committee during the actual projects

What’s missing from the above? Well, how about using it to help the actual daily work of project team members?

Project team members did not even have access to MS Project, it only existed in a few copies on the PM and Team Lead’s computers. Information-flow was one-way: feed the beast to be able to occasionally print charts that look impressive (scary) enough that Steering Committee members won’t question it.

Ok, I am admittedly sarcastic, but the point is: PM 1.0 was all about planning, reporting and it served Management but did not help actual Project Execution.

My expectation of PM 2.0 would be that it helps all team members involved who can share information, collaborate on it and actually get clues from the system on where they are, where they should be, what their next step is, instead of just feeding the beast.

At the recent Office 2.0 Conference I moderated a panel where several Project Management luminaries discussed these issues:

Andrew Filev (Wrike)
Bruce Henry (LiquidPlanner)
Mark Mader (Smartsheet)
Guy Shani (Clarizen)
Dean Carlson (Viewpath)

Here’s the entire session, courtesy of Veodia:

We are going to continue this discussion here @CloudAve. I’ve invited some of the speakers from the Panel – next one in our PM theme is Andrew Filev, CEO of Wrike, who will discuss his views of PM 2.0 in a few days.

Finally, talk is cheap – let’s see products. We will cover several On-Demand Project Management systems here. The reviews will lead into a new type of collaborative experience – more on it later.

In the meantime if you are a project management aficionado, you’re comments are always welcome – even better, contact me if you’d like to write a guest post @CloudAve.

First of all, guys, I _live_ on Cloud Avenue. Seriously. And I assume bought the url. Well, I'm glad it's you guys! I have been waiting for people to really think about Project Management 2.0 (not this term per se but the idea. My take is that after all the glow wears off on the first wave of 2.0 stuff which is largely social or utilitarian (messages, feeds), the second wave will have some specific apps like project management. 2.0 project management should break away from the MS Project view of this discipline: "A Project manager manages a project" to a much more collaborative view. This would be transparent across the org via the browser, allow commenting, allow simple creation of tasks and issues across the org. Omigod, that would be JIRA! Seriously, I have been waiting for the 2.0 crowd to give JIRA a renaissance in the glow of the 2.0 spotlights. You are spot on hammering MS Project and I love "PM 1.0 was all about planning, reporting and it served Management but did not help actual Project Execution." Surely I am not objective about JIRA, but did you know 50% of the people who use JIRA are _not_ developers. They use it for all kinds of project management and issue management. Great topic. Sorry if I got on a soapbox. -- jeffrey

I look forward to the upcoming review of the above listed solutions. Given the diversity in the five offerings, there is a good chance that at least one of the solutions will resonate with those looking to better perform 'PM 2.0', task management, work tracking, team collaboration, . In the same vein of how Jeffrey describes the JIRA customer base (previous comment), many Smartsheet subscribers don't classify themselves as 'traditional project managers' - or '2.0 project managers' for that matter. Instead, they share with us that their responsibilities encompass coordinating, capturing, updating, and communicating change across a whole host of 'work that involves others'. The answer to helping the majority of these customers isn't new-age GANTT charts or high-end project-management features. Success has been realized by solving core needs around listing the work at hand, knowing who owns what, and having relevant files and supporting information contextually stored and displayed. As I shared during the panel discussion, those who seek the '2.0 analog' to robust client-server project management software may be disappointed by what many Office/PM/Collaboration 2.0 providers (including Smartsheet) deliver. Although the demand for an online version of complex project management exists, the upcoming review may highlight that the target audience of these solutions is both different - and much larger.

Here's my holistic view of the definition:
Project Management 2.0 is an evolution of project management processes and tools that brings the following:
-up-to-date information on the project is stored in a centralized tool (vs in project manager’s head);
-processes and tools support changes in the schedule, and thus there’s a heavier focus on support of day to day project execution(vs up-front scheduling);
-processes and tools support open collaboration;
-processes and tools support freeform structures.

Project management 2.0 is very simple to explain. With 1.0 (MS Project) project managers are the only ones that actively participate in the project management (team members might use a project viewer to view their tasks), whereas with 2.0 team members are part of the process where they collaborate and contribute to projects to achieve an improved project management. However, I am not sure if there is a 2.0 tool that can truly replace MS Project in terms of management possibilities it offers. Biljana

First, subscribed! Web 2.0 was about crowdsourcing: getting the audience to participate in the process. Project Management 2.0 is also about the same. The traditional Project Manager role becomes decentralized and assigned to the team as they collaborate and execute a project via the new tools. As people have mentioned, MS Project is still the gorilla in the room. But if I have my way, people will start using Web 2.0 tools to move project management to a brighter space (see my post for using Twitter as a status tracker)

Project Management 2.0? Why, What’s Wrong with 1.0?

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